Post navigation

(May there be peace on the earth, the skies, space, in all directions and in the elements)

With this invocation, 150 voices joyfully soar in the oratorio Shanti, a Journey of Peace, singing of a connected world where there may be many ways to reach the source, but there is no concept of the “other” and we are all united in a state of oneness.

This ambitious choral work, augmented by dance and multimedia, is the creation of Dr. Kanniks Kannikeswaran, (fondly called Kanniks) and makes its premiere in the Bay Area on April 30, 2016. A blend of Indian and Western voices, Shanti is composed in a unique style developed by Kanniks, a blend of Indian and Western choirs with support from instruments and dance performances.

“My work is strictly based on harmonizing Indian ragas,” explains Kanniks. He is very particular about maintaining the structure and purity of the Indian ragas while writing polyphony for them. Kanniks uses the foundation of Indian classical music, particularly Hindustani classical music, to create a new sound that combines Indian and Western voices. “We have our way of singing with a little bit of ornamentation and voice texture,” he notes. “Our voices are trained to sing a certain way. When you combine our voices with the traditional Western soprano, alto, tenor, and bass sounds, that’s when you get goosebumps!”

Kanniks, who is trained in Carnatic music, gave his first vocal performance at the age of 13. A graduate of IIT Madras, he arrived in the US in 1984 to pursue a Masters in Materials Engineering and later an MBA in Information Systems. He began attending Western classical concerts out of curiosity and was spellbound by the music as well as the discipline of the performers. He taught himself Western music theory and MIDI and began experimenting with his new sound.

“Western composers have tried to incorporate some elements of Indian classical music,” he says. “But the music still has a Western approach, with just a feel of the raga – or an Indian sound in places. My compositions are written from an Indo-centric perspective.”

To his surprise and delight, he has been able to integrate many more elements into his creations than he thought possible to begin with. “When you talk about Western music you are talking about a range of frequencies that are available through various instruments. I visualize a length of an alaap (the improvised section of a raga) then support it with voice layers which harmonize without hurting the raga. On top of that I add layers of strings, woodwinds and even percussion like timpani and brass. They are all playing different things but the unified effect is what gives you chills.” The orchestra and Western voices he uses to enhance the ragas are not standalone pieces; they provide support and depth.

Kanniks created his first piece Basant (Spring) in 1994 in Cincinnati, where he lives and works as a consultant in the field of data warehousing and analytics. Basant was performed with a group of young, amateur Indian singers and accompanied by a Cincinnati church choir and local orchestra.

“Working with Western musicians was quite a learning experience,” he recalls. For one, the musicians could not abide the constant drone of the tanpura, an instrument used by Indian musicians to keep the pitch. Taken aback initially, Kanniks came around to their point of view. “I figured the Goddess Saraswati would not be offended if we switched it off,” he laughs.

He also realized that he could not rely on any improvisation on their part. “The entire score has to be written down and fixed,” he says. “It is comforting to have Indian musicians who can just wing it based on your instructions, but with Western musicians you have the satisfaction of knowing that the sound will be exactly the same each time and delivered perfectly.”

He also quickly realized that unlike Indian performers, Western musicians were very disciplined when it came to rehearsals. “If I had a rehearsal from 9 am to 11:30 am, the musicians would troop in at 8:50, start tuning their instruments and be ready to begin at 9 sharp. At 11:30 they would just pack up and leave, even if we were in the middle of a piece.” Unused to this behavior, Kanniks put it down to rudeness before realizing that this was, in fact, professionalism!

How does he come up with the themes of his compositions? “I think that even with my very first piece, Basant, my effort was to find unity through ragas and conveying the message that together we are bigger than the sum of our parts, though I am better at articulating that message these days!”

His second piece, The Blue Jewel, conveyed how the environment is sacred to us all, no matter which culture we come from. Film slides played during the performance captured the wanton destruction of the earth by human beings, while ragas with diabolical or devil’s intervals, sung by the choir, suggested the discord the environmental destruction had brought about. The piece ended on a message of hope and a prayer that we could correct course and respect and restore the blue jewel of the Earth. “When you want to show something big, music alone is not enough,” says Kanniks, who uses multimedia in nearly all his performances.

One exception is his Ragas in Symphony, which recently had a sold-out performance in Dallas. “It does not have a story line like Shanti,” explains Kanniks. “It is just about the changing of the seasons. We start out by holding the sacred sound of cosmic energy – Om. It is from this energy that everything manifested. You and I and everything else are a manifestation of this un-manifest reality. When we sing the piece we get in touch with this reality.” Ragas in Symphony also debuted the Nightingale Overture, a composition by Kanniks that paid tribute to the work of M.S. Subbulakshmi, the acclaimed Carnatic vocalist.

Shanti, A Journey of Peace, is Kannik’s most ambitious work. The musical extravaganza features both Indian and Western vocalists, a Western orchestra, multimedia support, and several dance troupes that bring the music to life. This synthesis of Indian and Western music in choral form is a new genre by itself.

Here is an excerpt of a previous performance of Shanti

Indian classical music, despite its beauty and complexity, has no choral or, for that matter, no vertical elements to it. “Indian classical music is about individual self-expression,” Kanniks points out. “There is no word in North or South Indian music that signifies a concert, a coming together of musicians.” Indeed, the closest modern word for a musical performance in South India is “Kachcheri” which is derived from an Urdu and Hindi word meaning “court,” signifying the patronage of musicians in the king’s court. Kanniks’ creations, therefore, forge a new path for Indian music.

“Here’s what I would like to leave behind,” says Kanniks when discussing his legacy. “Maybe one day we can have 100 choirs in a 100 cities. Each choir has a leader who I mentor. I create hundreds of taranas(melodies) with these harmonies that are performed by these choirs. Eventually each choir becomes self-sufficient.”

“My dream is that when the city hall is celebrating Diwali, this choir is invited to perform. We become part of the musical landscape. And when a newcomer moves to a city and they want an opportunity to sing, they find this organization and join.”

“To begin with, I will be the source of the music and provide the template. In another 10 years people familiar with the music will start writing their own compositions.”

Kanniks’ dream is well on its way. He has founded and led community choirs in 10 cities in North America including Cincinnati OH, Bethlehem PA, Dallas TX and Washington DC. He has expanded his work to Europe (The Hague – Netherlands). Now he brings his opus Shanti to two venues in the Bay Area, supported by a devoted and enthusiastic set of Indian and Western musicians and performers.

Performances are at 5 pm and 9 pm on April 30, 2016 at Flint Center in Cupertino and at 7 pm on May 21, 2016 at the Interstake Auditorium in Oakland. There is a special 50% off promotion going on the 5PM show on the 30th of April. Please avail of this discount using the discount code ‘MAR’ at Ticketmaster, accessed through the link above.

(Full Disclosure: I am one of the singers in Shanti! My experience with the rehearsals has been enormously uplifting and I often find myself humming the tunes while going about my day’s work. There’s something to be said about having a head filled with music, isn’t it?)

Update: This post was originally published on September 2010. There’s been a lively interest in the comments all these years so I have reposted to the front page to keep it current.

By Geeta Padmanabhan

In a society where one of the first lessons a youngster learns is to respect and obey the elderly in the family, touch their feet as often as possible or at least when he/she takes leave and returns from a trip, where every young girl moving to her husband’s home is told to take care of the in-laws and treat her husband’s family as her own, the growing phenomenon of retirement centres must come as a bit of a surprise.

Education at the primary and secondary levels in India is free in India when delivered through government schools. The quality of education varies wildly, and there are some glaring shortcomings in the program, which is why most NGOs and non-profits working in this sector tend to focus on early education, midday meal schemes (to keep kids in school) and supplemental tutoring. This makes eminent sense, since fixing the foundation and getting the basics right are the keys to literacy.

But kids who finish elementary school and have aspirations for college are often left out in the cold. There is tuition, however low, and hostel fees for those wanting to study out of town. In my own family, my father-in-law was an orphan who was determined to go to college and ended up begging for sponsorship from rich merchants in Bhubaneswar to pay his fees. He ended up with a phenomenally successful career and set up a small trust called Digjyoti to help kids like himself in Orissa.

The Vidyadhan program, set up by the Sarojini Damodaran Foundation, is a similar program conceived on a much larger and more professional scale. The program started in 1999 in Kerala and has given out 4,000 scholarships so far. About 750 students are helped each year at this time, but the plan is to grow this number to 100,000 in the next 5 years and cover as many other states as feasible.

I spoke with Meera Rajeevan, the program director, recently via phone and asked her how the candidates are selected. Since the program began in Kerala, where Kumari Shibulal and SD Shibulal, ex-chairman of Infosys, hail from, a network of trusted friends and family have been involved in means and merit testing. Currently, aspiring candidates for the scholarships have to pass an entrance test and an interview after which a volunteer visits the family to ensure the candidate does indeed have a financial need.

Volunteers also monitor progress on a regular basis (often more than once a year) to determine of the candidate continues to be eligible. It is a fairly rigorous process with hardly any misuse of funds by any recipient in the decade and a half since the program began. Each district has a district coordinator who keeps tabs.

One of the earliest recipients of the Vidyadhan Program is Dr. R. Gauthamen, who is currently on a Fellowship at Oxford. Dr. Gauthamen’s family ran a tailoring business in Alleppey that was constantly subject to the vagaries of demand. When he graduated high school with high grades, he was interested in studying medicine but his father could not afford the college or hostel fees. His teachers recommended him to the Foundation and after a detailed interview and home visit, his scholarship was approved. (The test was added in later years.)

The Vidyadhan program supported him through his MBBS and MD in India after which he applied to Oxford. Today he is doing a super-specialty in neonatology at John Radcliffe Hospital. He also works as a sponsor and liaison for the Vidyadhan program in London. “When I first met Mr. Shibulal,” he says, “I asked him why he was doing this for me. He told me that the day would come when I could pay it forward and that is what I am doing.”

Kumari Shibulal personally interviews all the potential candidates in Kerala. “Once, when I was talking to a girl who had applied, she broke down and started crying about her father’s ill health and how this was causing her family a great deal of suffering,” she recalls. “When she left after the interview I couldn’t stop thinking about her and I ran behind her to assure her that everything would be all right.” The Shibulals ended up paying for the family’s medical expenses as well. The family takes a very close and personal interest in this activity of the foundation and is keenly invested in the success of each student.

Now the program is expanding into Karnataka where the foundation takes the help of a local NGO called Vidya Poshak to administer background checks. Says Meera Rajeevan, “Unlike Kerala, we find that parents in rural Karnataka are less interested in sending girls for further education. So we are focusing more on the girl student here.” The program also gives a higher weightage to kids from rural areas.

In order to scale to 100,000 students, though, the SD Foundation realizes that it cannot be the only sponsor. The approach now is to find external individual and corporate sponsors from around the world who will directly sponsor the children. In an innovative approach, the Vidyadhan program makes sure that all sponsorship money is directly deposited into the bank account of the student. All administrative fees are borne by the foundation.

I asked Rajeevan if there was any potential for misuse. She confidently asserts that it has never happened, with even drop-out rates being only in the 10-15% range. This number, usually arising from the student not meeting the performance criteria, goes down to miniscule levels for kids who successfully make it to college and is a testament to the selection process. “And even if there were any misuse,” she points out reasonably, “it would be only for a year’s worth of funds.” Sponsors have also access to the students’ grades and fee receipts which brings even more transparency to the process.

What are the challenges for this program? “Each state has its own issues,” she says. “In Karnataka there is less awareness of the need for education.” Also, mentoring is a much needed investment for these kids who often suffer from low self-esteem as they rise above the circumstances they grew up in. Many cannot speak English well and find it hard to participate in the non-academic activities of the institution they join. This is where Rajeevan hopes the one-on-one sponsorship model will make a difference. “It is not mandatory, but if the sponsor wishes to get more involved with the student they are supporting we would very much welcome that.” The program is working on an online mentoring model as well.

As Dr. Gauthamen puts it, “Education is the best route to upward mobility.” To support the Vidyadhan program in its efforts or to become a sponsor/mentor for a college going student please visit https://www.vidyadhan.org/.

Note: My husband and I have been very impressed with the program and have decided to sponsor one student. Keep checking in here for more updates as the process begins.

Facebook has been aflame with the documentary “India’s Daughters” where the filmmaker got unprecedented access to a convicted rapist who laid out exactly the way many Indian men view women. (The documentary has been banned in India, but, as is the case with most forbidden things, has immediately become the most sought-after piece of film on the internet. Follow this link if you still have not seen it.)

Celebrities like Javed Akhtar, Kirron Kher and Jaya Bachchan have taken to the air to express their outrage. I have not seen any of their speeches, nor do I have to. While I was in India recently, the lament was universal – cultural change must happen. The mindsets of people must change, whereby they learn to respect women and value their daughters.

The sad truth is that this call for attitudinal change has been going on for a long, long time. And there is no denying that much needs to be done in this regard. According to Wikipedia

In April 2013, Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat noted that the legal principle of reliance on the sole testimony of the victim had become “an easy weapon” to implicate anyone in a case of rape. Justice Kailash Ghambhir of the Delhi High Court stated that penal provisions for rape are often being misused by women as a “weapon for vengeance and vendetta” to harass and blackmail their male friends by filing false cases to extort money and to force them get married.

If our judges can believe this, boy, we have a long way to go.

And therein lies the problem. We do need the activism that has led to the expansion of definition of rape and the enactment of tougher laws, the activism that still continues to fight for marital rape to be added to the list. We do need to educate our society on the value of women. But while we are waiting for society to catch up, women will still be gang-raped and murdered.

Societal change is a generational, sometimes multi-generational, process. In the meantime what are our women and girls to do?

Let’s look at the statistics. The conviction rates for rape cases in India were 44.3 percent in 1973, 37.7 percent in 1983, 26.9 percent in 2009, 26.6 percent in 2010 and 26.4 percent in 2011.(Courtesy First Post). Not only was the conviction rate low to begin with, it has steadily worsened over the last few decades.

What’s the point of having better laws if they are not going to be enforced? Enlightenment begins at the courthouse.

Enlightenment also begins at the police station. The estimate of unreported rapes varies between 50% and 90% in India. Rapists are often people in power, at least relative to the victim. Rape is an exercise of that power, of strong over weak, of powerful over powerless. And the fastest way to do something about that is to transfer that power.

First, make separate cells in police stations, run by female officers trained in administering rape kits, supported by prosecutors trained in rape laws, that provide assistance and support to victims. These cells can even provide a level of anonymity till a case can be made against the perpetrator and should be able to provide safe houses for the victims once a case goes to trial.

Second, fast-track rape cases and cases of violence against women though the morass that is the Indian judicial system. If the initial processing has been handled well, these cases should be relatively simple to prosecute. Create a separate judicial panel that is well-versed in crimes against women in each state to adjudicate these cases.

Third, put stiff fines on eve-teasing, groping, and any other actions that are precursors to violence. Today’s eve-teaser gets emboldened when his actions go unpunished and he might well escalate to more aggressive behavior. The local thulla should have the authority to slap that fine and, if he is corrupt (a high likelihood) then he should be reported to the rape cell in the local police station.

A zero-tolerance policy and stiff and swift punishment has to be the first response to this crisis. Nothing signals our attitude towards these crimes better than how we treat the people responsible for committing them. And if it means, Justice Bhat and Justice Ghambhir, that some innocent men are going to be swept up into the system unfairly, well, at least they are going to get their day in court, instead of getting thrashed by a mob.

Holidays bring on a kaleidoscope of sentiments, unlocking bolted doors to beautiful beginnings, reunions, peaceful endings, decisions to either forgive and let go or be emotionally distant. The magic and excitement that lead up to the big REVEAL on Christmas day heighten anxieties on all levels. There’s sleeplessness, moodiness, tension, mixed with anticipation and perfectionism, all in the name making another happy. And then, when the day arrives, the moment passes beforeyou can truly “enjoy it”. The holiday is over. The clean-up is finally done. The decorations all putaway, without a trace they ever existed, to rummage through again for another do-over next year.

How many of you hide your chaotic life to put on a smile for the future memory frozen in time by the holiday picture? And how many of you feel like the inflatable Santa that just popped, (after it took you 5 hours to set it up), when the special day doesn’t go as planned after all the thought that went into it?

I so wanted to make this Christmas for Ari a really special one. Last year she was too young to understand the fuss. I’d been waiting 30-odd years to share the magic of the season with a child and we were in India, where I felt I needed to put in a little more work into something that would have been rather effortless in the United States. I was also terrified of messing up and being like the Grinch who stole Christmas. She and I had gone through a lot in the previous year and I had a crazy notion that a mini Xmas Spectacular would erase all that. Above all, I just wanted to make her happy.

BUT Ari had her own plans. We thought she had the normal seasonal cold/cough but we had to rush her to the hospital for a sudden spike in her fever – a 103.9° temperature (The pictures don’t reflect how sick she was because Christmas magic made her feel excited to dress up). She caught a viral fever and then bronchitis. The doctor who had been her pediatrician from the age of 2 months finally concluded that she has chronic allergy bronchitis, which will trigger from allergy or a cold, and she’ll be susceptible to asthma and other respiratory /lung infections too.
Of course, our Christmas dinner was cut short, after I had spent at least 8 hours in the kitchen, and our spirits were dim, after we’d been on a high all month. And it suddenly was just a normal day… we were sad and scared for her. No parent can stand to see their child silently crying, using their blankie to stop the tears rolling down their cheeks, and confusion in their eyes. It’s not a terminal illness, or even unmanageable, nonetheless, it’s a lesson.

I learnt that it’s not the end of the world if everything doesn’t go according to plan, and while no one can plan for the worst, we have to be emotionally flexible, hope for the best, and work around the obstacles. And most importantly, I learnt what was really important to me, to us. I will never forget this Christmas Eve, because as a family, we were there for our daughter’s 1st Christmas. It was/is another reminder of why we are all together. It wasn’t a spoiled evening, or even an obstacle; it simply was proof of how much we care for each other, and how lucky and grateful I am for everyone who came to our rescue!

Mona Inaya, who previously blogged on this site as Yamuna Kona, brings up her daughter as a single mom, and has started a blog where you can follow her journey. Check out http://singlemommadramaclub.blogspot.in/

It’s been 7 years since I wrote the first piece about moving back to India, and 5 years since the second piece after settling into the move. A few life changing events have happened since then. I sold Chaupaati to Future Group in India in 2010, we had our boy Kanav in 2012, I sold Chalo to OpenTable in the US in 2013, and subsequently moved from Powai to Berkeley in 2014 to integrate the acquisition as Shruti took on a fellowship at the Public Policy School of UC Berkeley.

As 2014 winds down, Shruti has finished her fellowship and I have concluded my gig at the acquiring company. Shruti remains committed to influencing policies towards cleaner energy and environment, and I remain committed to building world class tech companies out of India. Other than that, we are sufficiently confused about what we call home now and have decided to take 4 months off to travel the world and figure it out. Quoting my recent tweet – “India > Morocco > Spain > Chile > New Zealand > Australia > Hawaii > US (6 continents, 5 islands, 4 months, 3 people, 2 hemispheres, 1 life)”.

Encouragement and feedback from the Indian diaspora, friends, and colleagues have inspired me to write part three. Here is a short recap of my first two pieces to jog your memory. The first one contrasted life in the U.S. & India with regard to other people’s influence over our daily lives (opt-in v opt-out), relationships within the household (2C2 v 4C2), business environments (Sequoia v Banyan tree) and the diversity in social group (nationality v professional). The second one contrasted the two cultures with regard to socio-economic priorities (aspiration v experience), consumption patterns (survival v progress), impact of structure (chaos v order) and the experience with elements (man v nature). I am writing part three at a time when there is adequate clarity about the confusion before there is confusion about the clarity. So go ahead and have fun once more at my expense.

The “6-hour flight” testCouple v Couple Dozen

An American colleague pointed out to me that a 6-hour flight from San Francisco to any place outside the U.S. would only take you as far as Mexico or Canada. Europe is an entire mainland and ocean away, and Asia Pacific needs you to cross the largest ocean of the world. Latin America and the Caribbean are out of bounds too. That got me thinking. .. Picking Delhi as the base, a 6-hour flight out would cover 26 countries, including China, Russia, 7 SAARC countries, 7 East Asian countries, 8 Middle Eastern countries and 2 African island countries. The list would be larger by another dozen countries if there were more non-stop flights or if they were an hour or two longer.

The contrast is starker if you consider the world’s population covered in the circle within the radius of a 6-hour flight. New Delhi would cover half the world’s population within a 6-hour flight radius while San Francisco would cover one-fifteenth. No wonder Americans seem a bit disconnected from the rest of the world.

“US is a time machine for India”… NOTSame v Different

Between 2003-2006, major Sand Hill Road VCs set up shop in India to invest in tech startups. Their thesis was that what worked in the US could be replicated & adapted for the Indian market. A decade, a correction, and some long fund cycles later, the asset value looks promising on paper but the realized value has been a disappointment. In layman’s terms, the business of investing in Indian tech startups has not returned money after a decade. The depth of an IPO environment is a good yardstick of market maturity. You can count the number of Indian tech IPO’s on the fingers of one hand. In fact, no tech company that started after 2003 has gone IPO. As a sliver of hope, four companies that started in 2006 or later have raised money at a valuation over a billion dollars, and their best bet for an IPO is in financial markets abroad, as their company structures already reflect. It has not been all smooth sailing for them either as the Indian government flip-flops between leaving you alone and trying to come after you.

After being part of consumer businesses in both markets with millions of users in each, I have learnt a few things. First, the economics in India work in favor of solving problems through people rather than machines, while the opposite is true in the U.S. Second, the Indian consumer’s tolerance for pain to avoid spending is in sharp contrast to the US consumer’s propensity to pay for control & convenience. Third, for consumer tech businesses at scale, revenues per customer are a fifth in India as a direct result of purchasing power parity but unit costs are only half due to smaller or no gap in real estate, tech talent, or fuel costs. For these reasons, India will not evolve like the U.S. for any foreseeable period of time.

The Indian entrepreneur’s dilemmaReturns v Impact

When my Indian company was bought by the leading group in the $400B retail market of India, their market cap was about a billion dollars. A few years later, when my U.S. company was bought by the leader in a $50B niche in the hospitality market of US, their market cap was well over a billion dollars but with far lesser volatility. Despite being similar sized acquisitions, my Indian company was a full-fledged business with profitability and scale at the time of exit, while my U.S. company exited thrice as fast after building a product that had yet to be launched. An IPO environment in a larger market with predictable policies seems to outweigh the depth of latent market opportunity.

Immigrants are cursed for life because of their inability to reconcile their life in the place where they grew up and have parents with the new life created in the comforts of the developed world where they made money and had children. Indian entrepreneurs get a double whammy for trying to reconcile the gratification of solving the more fundamental problems of India with the lucrativeness of solving the more incremental problems of the developed world. I first tried to build a business for the U.S. market while being in India and right out of college 15 years ago. We have come a long way since then in our ability to succeed with that model, my last company being a validation of that, and I would bet that the next 15 years will see some pleasant surprises.

The Formative YearsEntitlement v Perspective

As we think of our next chapter in life, we find our perspective being driven by the fact that we are parents. We must deliberate the choice of where Kanav’s formative years should be.

Neuroscience shows that life experiences in the past continuously result in formation of brain patterns that determine how future events occur to us, resulting in the thought processes that determine our actions and decisions. Patterns formed between the ages of 3 and 16 (roughly) become the OS of our brain. This OS is stuck with us for life, and does not really alter unless the computer crashes due to a major life event and you need a recovery disk boot-up. Patterns due to experiences in rest of adult life are only apps on top of the OS and do not alter our core personality. 90% of critical brain development of a human happens by the age of 5. As a parent now, I need to be deliberate about how my child spends the formative years of life, especially 3 to 5.

Another daunting fact is that the life expectancy of an American is nearly 79 years, 20% more than an Indian. It is no surprise that my friends in U.S. look and feel younger than friends of the same age in India. At the same time, due to experiences with lack of structure and diverse identities while growing up, my Indian friends are far more adaptive to multiple divergent perspectives than my American friends are.

On the one hand, you obviously want a long and healthy life for your children. On the other hand, an upbringing in India, balanced with access to diverse perspectives globally, would make them more grounded. When they enter adulthood they might be more thankful for the privileges of the developed world and have more empathy for points of view of the rest.

Shruti works in a field where policies are made in the U.S. and applied to India. I work in a field where products are made in India and applied to the U.S. Kanav is at an age where our choice of what we do next and where we do it from would shape the rest of his life in a meaningful way.

With great choice comes great confusion. Shruti, Kanav and I are about to begin a once-in-a-lifetime journey together to figure all this out. The travel involves a fortnight in US and India each, but most of it in neutral third countries with just the three of us. No bias of the place we are in, positive or negative. It is time to fall in love all over again, with each other and with the planet. The serendipitous timing of our career breaks and the liability-free age of our son gives us the opportunity to invest in some soul-searching while globe-trotting. The answer to what’s next for each of us will present itself. I feel like Truman Burbank.

In 2007 I wrote about Hindi being accepted for foreign language credit in area high schools, mainly due to the tireless efforts of Madhu Aggarwal of the Madhu Bhasha Kendra. Since then over 100 students have used the Kendra to complete their language credits and 55 are currently enrolled, but their journey has not been easy. Because of the dearth of trained and certified language teachers in the schools themselves, students have had to work on their credits outside of their primary high school in certified programs like those of the Kendra.

All that is changing with the enrollment of the first Hindi language instruction student at the Teacher Education Department at California State University, East Bay.

Sharon Simonson of SV1World does a nice job of capturing Hindi’s journey thus far. She writes

Anupama Sarna plans to complete her Hindi teacher certification at CSU, East Bay next year. The principal of a private, nonprofit Hindi language school in Fremont would be the first to gain a primary teacher certification in Hindi and become the second certified Hindi language teacher in the state. The honor of first California certified Hindi teacher goes to Madhu Aggarwal, the founder of the Fremont school, MBK Language Center, who in 2013 gained her primary certification in science, then added Hindi language….

“Now when I go to a (public) school asking that they start a Hindi program, they can no longer say they can’t find (certified) teachers. That has been a major roadblock to even initiate these conversations,” she said. “Considering the number of Indian people (in Fremont), there is no reason whatsoever that Hindi is not offered in our school system.”

Mihir Baya is one of the high-schoolers who attends Hindi language classes at Madhu Aggarwal’s school. He is a freshman at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont and found the opportunity to study for a language class outside school useful because he could pick another elective of his choice at school.

Mihir started learning Hindi last year in 8th grade because his parents wanted him to learn one of the most important languages of his culture. Says dad Vinod, “The intent was to have some familiarity with the language of our origin, so that when he is India or interacts with folks back home he can do that with some ease.” He searched for programs that offered high-school credit and found Madhu Aggarwal’s classes.

Says Mihir, “I can now read and write fluently but am still working on grammar and fluency in speaking Hindi.” Since he skipped a level in his Hindi program, he gets to complete 3 years of language requirement that most UC’s look for in just 2 years.

Madhu Aggarwal hopes that the availability of Teacher Certification training in Hindi will open doors for other teachers interested in teaching Hindi at the high school level. The ultimate goal is to make Hindi seamlessly available in high schools across the country, and that can only happen if there are enough trained teachers available.

Her one-woman crusade has taken Hindi, India’s national language, from an exotic foreign phenomenon to mainstream education in the U.S. Perhaps one day we will have immersion classes in Hindi like the Mandarin ones in local elementary schools. As the Indian economy and market become more and more attractive to non-Indian businesses and visitors, Hindi might become a sought-after world language. A rich, complex, and inclusive language, it rewards students with a whole new perspective on a warm and welcoming culture. Bonus: You wouldn’t have to read the subtitles in Bollywood movies anymore!